I do 22 miles a day round trip right through the centre of Aberdeen, my car although capable of 45mpg is only getting 22mpg in the traffic so is going
through about £55 a week on petrol (funnily enough the wife’s 2.0 tdi cmax only managed 24mpg for the same journey! So much for modern cars…)
As the wife has banned me from motorbikes, I’ve been thinking of alternatives to the car. As the distance is so short and it only needs to be for me,
what I really need is a small 3 wheeled electric trike/car single seater that’s still safe. It has to be enclosed with proper windows, wipers,
electric heater, stereo and a single side access door. Budget for the whole thing would be about 2k at most, hopefully a lot less using eBay.
A while back I’d looked at a few designs that you could make the body from foam and GRP, one in particular looks quite nice as in the picture, well
the back look nice the front needs remodelled.
Based on its principles, I was thinking of buying a motorbike, ditching the engine and fitting an electric motor (belt drive), then removing the
handle bars so the frame and rear end could be bolted to a simple laser cut sheet steel back bone chassis with an alloy vw Beetle front end, couple of
narrow minilite’s on the front, fat wide alloy on the back like in the pic. For stability I think I’d mount the batteries in the sills on a tray
that’s bolted on from below, for just a 22 miles range at around 70% @ 30mph & 30% @ 60mph usage I reckon 4-6 deep cycle AGM battery’s would be
sufficient and I already know a company that can build the motor controller.
Most important would to keep the original bike registration so as to avoid anything like the IVA…I want it registered as a trike conversion.
Current features in mind are LED lights all round apart from the headlights which would be small second hand projector units. Chassis and front beam
moulded into the body shell for strength and durability, seat back would be moulded to me with just a minimum of foam. Side windows acrylic but the
front window would be a cut down tin top screen, not sure which yet. No storage space would be required. I already have a nice 225/13 tyre for the
back so would make a new swing arm to suit it.
I’m pretty good with working GRP and this Bodyshell would be the old skinning a foam core method and on this scale should be a doddle to do.
Idea's and suggestions would be appreciated.
I'm in a similar boat in terms of range requirements. Only difference is I would go through msva. Over the last couple of years I've made
some sketches and even bought some parts (steering rack, hubs) and I've been eyeing up the forklifts at the local scrapyard I've also
considered using an electric hub motor such as enertrac and keeping the whole thing as lightweight as possible.
Have you had a browse on this forum?
I seriously considered this a few years ago but the cost of a decent motor that had plenty of torque but didn't weight stupid ammounts was just
crazy... There must be a better/cheaper solution these days though I expect!! Really interested to see what you come up with
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Would the last person who leaves the country please switch off the lights and close the door!
I've also
considered using an electric hub motor such as 
